Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Director of EMCDDA,
Deputy Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Justice,
Director of the Drug Coordination Unit of the European Commission
Deputy Director of Europol,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I attend this Conference, which is being held in the year when the European Observatory of Drug and Drug Addiction celebrates 15 years of activity. I recall the negotiations in which I took part and which permitted that the headquarters of this Observatory be located in Portugal and, 15 years gone by, I am pleased to conclude that the effort we made was worth while.

This agency of the European Union that Portugal welcomed has produced high quality work for monitoring the drug and drug addiction phenomena in Europe, as is anyway well presented in the Annual Report of the Observatory. I wish, publicly, to congratulate the Management and its entire staff on how the Observatory has fulfilled its mission.

The conference which is now closing, whose target is to identify the European information needs for an effective policy to combat drugs, was surely another step in the deepening of the cooperation that this fight greatly demands.

It is essential to collect and systematize the best information on narcotics, concerning who sells them and who buys them. We can only effectively combat drugs if we have the correct cognizance of the phenomenon. Know the causes, the people which are reached, the substances involved, the production and distribution networks, the international components and the local conditionings. For all this, the Observatory has been able to collect, compile and analyse fundamental information, as was shown in the Conference which is now being concluded. I hope that the action tools, the definitive proposals and the solutions discussed here can be applied with the required urgency.

In each minute which is lost in the fight against drugs, another youth will be attracted to consume them or another life destroyed by drug addiction. With this life others will be dragged to the chasm. More than consumers, we have people who are consumed by drugs. Them, their families, their friends.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The fight against drugs and linked phenomena demands international cooperation and combined operations. This year of 2009 is, in that perspective, a special year, since it corresponds to the launching of the European Union Drugs Action Plan for the period 2009-2012, through which the Union will perfect its prevention and fighting strategy.

The issue of drugs assumes, as is known, a planetary dimension. It is an issue which is based on complex economic balances and is even geo-strategic, involving unstable countries or regions, and peoples whose poverty turns them into hostages of the war lords who finance themselves through production and trafficking, and of criminal networks which act beyond national boundaries.

Drug addiction is a disease. As such we have to prevent it and treat it. Dependency from the use of drugs is not, as no disease will ever be, a purely individual issue. It is the result of an unhappy meld of predisposition and vulnerability, associated to the context of supply and opportunity. It is a product of the people, of the places and of the moments. For this reason combating drugs is a clear example of the need to join efforts to act simultaneously on several fronts.

Knowledge must exist on how to prevent starting the use of drugs, and how to encourage and treat those who want to abandon them, and bring aid to the physical, mental and social sequels.

At the end of last year, in a campaign which I dedicated, as several others, to social inclusion, I gave special regard to initiatives which involved the treatment, recovery and reinsertion of drug addicts. They are citizens of our Europe, on whom we must not turn our backs. It is also because of them that we are meeting here today. It is never too late to go back to a self-sufficient life and to be able to live alongside others. Treatment, abandoning consumption and reinsertion are possible. It is a difficult path, a very painful process, but there are always reasons for hope.

I want to take advantage of this opportunity to praise all those who were able to conquer addiction, who are ready to talk about it, to discourage new consumers and to return to a full and productive life.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The drug phenomenon, as I said, generates victims beyond the individual addicts. It destroys families, corrodes the interior of societies, contributes towards collective insecurity, and leads to the spending of enormous resources in prejudice of other equally pressing purposes. The impact of drugs in societies will imply the mustering of a multiplicity of means: from defence to security, from justice to health and to social aid. The figures shown by this Observatory are impressive and cannot leave us indifferent.

Without neglecting the truceless fight against production and trafficking, we need policies which diminish sources of poverty in the world, which will place an end to regional conflict and increase worldwide security. But, in Europe and in each of our countries, we also need citizens who are more aware, better informed, more critical in their choice. We need family policies and a growing attention to our young people. We need healthy cities where the younger generations can find a better environment which removes them from the temptations of consuming and from the flight from a reality which they presage, many times with reason, as hostile.

We have to proceed on our route to fight against drugs. The data from this European Observatory signals us that victory is possible.

Here again, I am convinced more European integration is necessary, since this fight cannot be carried out with success just with national policies, decided and applied by each State. This pressing and urgent challenge requires a truly European response.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is a good opportunity to recall that tomorrow we celebrate one more anniversary of the Schumann Declaration. It was precisely on 9 May 1950 that the movement of European integration was launched, the most relevant initiative in XX century Europe. European construction is, unarguably, an example of success in our common History. In the times that we live, it is opportune to remember the European response to the human, social, economic and moral destruction caused by the largest and most tragic world war. The answer, designed by a notable group of European leaders, united by the values, the principles, the determination, and by a visionary strategic sense, was integration.

This Europe, which was necessary to overcome the devastating traces of the war, continues indispensable to face today’s challenges, be they the economic and financial crisis, the security of the States and of the peoples, the protection of the environment, the social exclusion, the defence of the consumers or public health.

We have come a long way to arrive at today’s European Union. A Union which was not just forged for economic integration, but knew how to deepen itself in multiple activities which provide it with an outstanding political dimension. A Union which contributed decisively to the end of the East-West confrontation and to the Cold War, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, already twenty years ago. A Union which was projected from the 6 founder States to the current 27 and which is negotiating with new members.

A long and successful path has been travelled. But there is still further to go. The dynamics of deepening cannot stop. Consistently, it has to continue contributing to overcome the issues faced by the Europeans.

It seems to us at times that solidarity is not as strong, that the strategic vision has lost its reach, that a phenomenon of erosion or of “integration fatigue” even exists. It is true that stalemates in decisions, secondary disputes, bureaucratic autism and national selfishness with which Europe is faced here and there, have contributed to a greater disbelief of the peoples in the project of European integration. These are signs which would be unwise to ignore. These are signs that demand the attention of the European leaders and which should encourage the actions directed towards the resolution of the problems and anxieties of the Europeans.

Elections for the European Parliament will be held within a few weeks. It is an occasion to debate the issues faced by the Europeans. It is not the mere European rhetoric that should be the centre of the debate, but rather the alternatives to face concrete issues.

Notwithstanding the existing difficulties, integration is the biggest trump that Europe has to guarantee the peace, economic progress and social protection that Europeans legitimately demand. And European integration is also the biggest trump to guarantee Europe a top ranking place in the new multi-polar world which will be redesigned in the XXI century. Today’s European leaders will be judged by the capability they will show in procuring advantages from European integration for the benefit of the people.

I end by again saluting the Conference participants, who have provided a further contribution to advance European construction in the right direction, the interest that links us all.